Another Spar Cap Tapered

No pictures today, but was able to finish tapering another spar today.  That means two down and two to go before I get to start drilling and assembling the spars.  Exciting stuff!

1 Tapered Spar...3 to go...

Yesterday and today, I spent a total of 2.5 hours in the garage.  I cut another side of one of the spar caps last night and sanded and smoothed both cuts.   That leaves 3 to go.  So I guess another 7 hours or so.  I think it will go faster since I was learning on this one.

I bought a new bandsaw blade and decided to try that.  I actually think I like the reciprocating saw the best for this.  Just have to be careful not to cut too close.  I think I'll save the bandsaw for crosscutting the extruded angles.

Here are some pics of the rough cut with the bandsaw, and the final product filed and sanded smooth.

Rough Cut




Filed and Sanded
Lined it up with the workbench so you can see the taper.


In my opinion, the trick here is to remember that you can always remove more material, but you can't add it back later.

Spar Jigs and Tapering Spar Caps

Today I created the two jigs that are used to ensure that the spars are 5.5" tall.  Pretty straight forward.



This shows how they are used to align the spar parts for drilling and riveting.


I also started marking the taper in the spar caps.  I made 1 cut.  I used a jigsaw and actually had a lot of luck with a reciprocating saw.  I will have to sand/rout the edges smooth, but the cuts are still faster than the 4130 cuts.



The taper is hard to see, but the spar cap goes from 1.5" to 1" over a 20" span.  Rumor has it, this removed about 3 lbs of unnecessary weight.



Today I used the Harbor Freight Digital Caliper to make my jig. It might have been overkill, but was happy to try it out.  Not bad for $18.

Cutting Wing Spar Parts

I had a productive day today.  I updated the materials list for an outdoor TV cabinet on my other website (www.buildbuydiy.com) and spent 4 hours in the shop building airplane parts.  Today I cut most of the pieces for the center and wing spars.  I just need to taper the main spars before I'm ready to start drilling holes for the bolts and rivets.

Here are all of the parts I cut today.  Doesn't look like much but there is a lot sanding and finishing after the cutting is done.  All cuts were done with a jigsaw today.  My bandsaw isn't cutting straight, and I didn't feel like troubleshooting it.



Testing fit the major parts of the center section spar.  Looks good!



This shows where the 4130 parts I made in earlier posts go.


Tool of the day goes to the Scotch Bright wheel.  This is a great way to debur parts fast using a drill press.

Rough Cut Wing Ribs and Bulkheads

UPDATE:  I've since decided to buy the bulkhead kit from Greg Westberry.  Yes, the work in this post was a waste, but making all of the wood forming blocks was going to take a lot of time.  

Last night I used my air shears for the first time.  They're the greatest thing since the Olfa cutter (which was yesterday)!  I traced all of the .040 pieces onto the metal (mostly fuselage bulkheads) and rough cut them with the air shears.  Smooth like butter!

I also cut out .020 ribs and one leading edge.  My goal was to breakdown the 4x12 sheets of aluminum into a pile of something more manageable in a one car garage so I can have room to build my spar.

Here are some pictures...

Cutting bulkheads



Stack of rough rib blanks.  I'm going to use a router and a wood form to make the final shapes 4 at a time.



Rough cut leading edge of one wing


Time to go to work!

Markers, Templates and Web Spars

After a business trip, a cruise, and the flu; I'm back building.  I snuck in a few hours here and there and managed to get the ribs all traced onto a sheet of .020 6061, traced/cut out all of the .040 part templates onto paper templates, and tonight I measured and cut my spar webs.

Here are some pictures...

The .020 sheet marked up for the rib blanks.




Tracing paper templates and the results.  Sometimes I just cut straight from the copy I made of the plans.  When templates overlapped each other, I traced them using some tracing paper.






Cutting web spars with the Olfa PC-L cutter.  This thing is great.  If you're debating going this route, it was $11 on Amazon.  Measuring and cutting all three took me an hour, and the results are impressive.  It even comes with extra blades in the handle.  Well worth the investment.


Using the Olfa.



The cut web spars.

Mylar Templates

Instead of going to Sun-n-Fun, I started to cut out the templates, and way under-estimated the amount of time it will take to get everything cut out.  I spent two hours cutting out the main rib templates, F2 and F7 and transferring them to mylar to later cut out of metal.

I think I'll just make the patterns that are used more than once out of mylar.  Otherwise, I'll just cut them out of the copies I made of the plans to help reduce the time.   That reminds me, I made copies of my plans at a blueprint printer based on some reading I did online.  Two copies of the full set of plans was about $40.  I thought that was reasonable assuming the whole airplane should be about $20,000.

I was nervous about the copies not being accurate, so I used some plexiglass I had laying around and made a quick light box by arranging some boards and a flashlight.  Here is a really bad shot of the end result...



I laid the copies on top of the originals sheet by sheet, and found them to be spot on accurate.  Here is a close up of two plans on top of each other.



Here are the templates I made today.  I keep calling them mylar, but they are basically plastic poster board from Michaels.  Florida gets humid, so I thought they would hold up better.  I also have about 5 other templates cut out of the plan copies that are still just on paper.  I spent about an hour reviewing the plans trying to decide what to do when the templates overlap on the plans.  Dave did this occasionally to fit more on one sheet of paper.  Not a big deal,  just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything.  If you notice, there are two rear rib portions.  There is a slight variance in ribs 1-4 to accommodate the spar caps.

Unrolling Aluminum for the First Time

I was a little nervous about how much energy was stored up in a roll of aluminum from everything I read online.  Today I decided to cut the tape and see what happens.  Here is a quick video of that process in case anyone else is nervous too.

This roll had one sheet of .020 and one sheet of .040 6061 in it.  Both rolls are 4ft by 12 ft.

I'm going to make some mylar templates today and rough cut the shapes of the spar web, ribs and bulkheads.  I'm building in a one car garage, so i need to get the 4x12 sheet down to manageable sized parts, but I need the .040 for the spar web.  Heading on a cruise tomorrow, so no building this weekend (first world problems, I guess!).